IGNITE YOUR BUSINESS PART I

By Dan Woebkenberg

When we returned from last year’s Transitions Academy (after we won the 2012 Transitions Lab of the Year title) we literally sat down the next day to share notes and identify what teachings we could incorporate into the upcoming year.

Because Transitions Academy takes place in January, it serves as a launching pad for new ideas and strategies to try. At last year’s event, one key message that stood out to us at Diversified was that eye care professionals are missing an opportunity to meet consumers’ desire for choice and that recommending the full Transitions family of products can help fill that gap.

We offer the full family of lenses from Transitions Optical, and wanted to make sure our customers were more aware of each option as well. So, we decided to align a big part of our education and marketing efforts with re-educating our customers about the Transitions family of products. To really drive the “family” message home, we launched a “We are Family” Sweepstakes. Here’s how it worked:

GOALS: One of our main goals for the sweepstakes was to bring attention to each of our customers’ Transitions lens sales and challenge them to increase their sales by 25 percent by focusing on the Transitions family of products. After a lot of pre-launch marketing and communication, the promotion ran from July 1 until Oct. 1.

HOW TO PLAY: The sweepstakes revolved around an official game board that our eyecare professional customers requested from Diversified. We customized each game board so that it featured that specific account’s Transitions lens baseline and their projected goal (to increase sales by 25 percent). Participants were required to earn and collect tokens that matched the 46 different spots on the game board.

Eye care professionals could earn tokens in multiple ways. The first three spots on the game board were dedicated solely to education. Eye care professionals needed to complete Transitions Optical’s family of products Brainshark course to earn tokens for the Transitions lenses, Transitions XTRactive lenses and Transitions Vantage lenses spots. We later learned that during the sweepstakes, 72.65 percent of the viewers of the Brainshark during that time were from Diversified accounts.

The remaining 43 spots represented all of the different media channels that Transitions Optical advertised in, including television and magazine. For every Transitions lens order placed by that practice, the eyecare professional would earn a random token for their game board.

Because longer promotions tend to die out, we were able to keep the excitement going with this sweepstakes by creating an online forum for customers to visit and trade tokens to better fill in their game board.

PRIZES AND REWARDS: Once all 46 spots on the board were filled, the eyecare professional or practice could turn it in and earn prizes along the way. A practice could automatically win a $25 gift card for submitting a board, and be entered into drawings for a $50 gift card every month. The practice with the highest growth rate won an iPad mini with a keyboard, and all participates were entered to win the grand prize trip for two to Las Vegas. Customers could turn in several game boards – and one account even turned in five.

Results: The sweepstakes created a lot of buzz and excitement among our customers. Some of our customers were still working on filling out their boards past the Oct. 1 cut-off date. The promotion created a sense of urgency among our customers to earn those tokens and become more familiar with the Transitions family of products. Aside from seeing our customers’ businesses grow, Diversified also experienced a substantial increase in Transitions lens sales during the promotional period. As we measured sales after the sweepstakes ended, we were delighted to experience the staying power of this highly effective program. Sales levels continued strong throughout 2013 and into the new year.

The key takeaway: Motivating customers to become better educated about products, and creating a long-term promotion can help impact immediate and long-term sales.

Dan Woebkenberg, is the vice president of sales and marketing at Diversified Ophthalmics, Inc.Cincinnati, Ohio, with seven U.S. lab locations.